Jasper Godwin Ridley,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

(25 May 1920 – 1 July 2004) was a British writer, known for historical biographies. He received the 1970

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

for his biography of ''

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...

''. Born in

West Hoathly West Hoathly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, located south west of East Grinstead. In the 2001 census 2,121 people, of whom 1,150 were economically active, lived in 813 households. At the 201 ...

, Sussex, he was educated at Felcourt School,

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

, and the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

. He trained and practised as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

, being called to the Bar by the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in 1945, before starting to write. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served with an air defence unit and manned an anti-aircraft battery at Portsmouth, where the man next to him was killed by shrapnel. He served on

St Pancras Borough Council St Pancras was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Boa ...

from 1945 to 1949, and stood, unsuccessfully, as Labour Party candidate for

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

in 1955 general election. He married, in 1949, Vera Pollak, who died in 2002 and with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Works

*''The Tate Gallery's Wartime Acquisitions'' (1942) *''The Law of the Carriage of Goods by Land, Sea and Air'' (1957) *''Nicholas Ridley'' (1957) *''Thomas Cranmer'' (1962) *''John Knox'' (1968) *''Lord Palmerston'' (1970) *''Garibaldi'' (1974) *''The Roundheads'' (1976) *''Napoleon III and Eugénie'' (1979) *''The History of England'' (1981) *''Statesman and Saint: Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, and the Politics of Henry VIII'' (1982) *''Life and Times of Mary Tudor'' (1973) *''Henry VIII the Politics of Tyranny'' (1984) *''The Tudor Age'' (1988) *''The Love Letters of Henry VIII'' (1988) editor *''Elizabeth I: the Shrewdness of Virtue'' (1988) *''Maximilian & Juarez'' (1992) *''Tito'' (1994) *''A History of the Carpenters' Company'' (1995) *''Mussolini'' (1997) *''The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society'' (1999) *''The Houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: A Royal History of England'' (2000) with John Clarke *''Bloody Mary's Martyrs: The Story of England’s Terror'' (2001) *''A Brief History of The Tudor Age'' (2002)

External links

"Jasper Ridley"
Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature

in the ''Daily Telegraph'', 8 July 2004 * http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext17/Mildiscp.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Ridley, Jasper 1920 births 2004 deaths Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford British biographers British historians Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates University of Paris alumni James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients 20th-century biographers Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature British expatriates in France Members of the Inner Temple Labour Party (UK) councillors